WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Thursday revoked a scientific finding that has long been the central basis for US action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change, the most aggressive move by the Republican president to dismantle climate regulations.
The rule finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency revokes a 2009 government declaration known as the hazard finding which determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare.
The Obama administration’s finding of danger is the legal basis of nearly all climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants and other sources of planet-warming pollution.
President Donald Trump called the move “the single largest deregulatory action in American history, by far” while EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin called the hazard finding “the Holy Grail of federal regulatory overreach.”
Trump called the endangerment finding “one of the biggest scams in history,” adding that it “had no basis in fact” or law. “On the contrary, over the generations, fossil fuels have saved millions of lives and lifted billions of people out of poverty around the world,” said Trump during a White House ceremony.
Legal challenges are certain to an action that would repeal all greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars and trucks, and could lead to a broader repeal of climate regulations on stationary sources such as power plants and oil and gas facilities, experts say. The overturning of the finding will “raise more noise” than other actions by the Trump administration to remove dozens of environmental rules, said Ann Carlson, a professor of environmental law at the UCLA School of Law.
Environmental groups described the move as the biggest single attack in US history against federal authority to address climate change. They said that the evidence supporting the finding of danger has become stronger in the 17 years since it was approved.
The EPA also said it would propose a two-year delay for a Biden-era rule restricting greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks. And the agency will end tax credits for automakers that install automatic start-stop ignition systems in their vehicles. The device is meant to reduce emissions, but Zeldin said “everyone hates it”.
Zeldin, a former member of the Republican Congress who was tapped by Trump last year to lead the EPA, criticized his predecessors in the Democratic administrations, saying that in the name of addressing climate change, they were “ready to fail the country”.
The hazard finding “has led to trillions of dollars in regulations that have choked entire sectors of the US economy, including the US auto industry,” Zeldin said. “The Obama and Biden administrations used it to push a left-wing wish list of expensive climate policies, electric vehicle mandates and other requirements that attacked consumer choice and affordability.”
The hazard finding and the regulations based on it “didn’t just regulate emissions, they regulated and targeted the American dream. And now the hazard finding is hereby eliminated,” Zeldin said.
The Supreme Court confirmed the finding of danger
The Supreme Court ruled in a 2007 case that the greenhouse gases that warm the planet, caused by the burning of oil and other fossil fuels, are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
From the decision of the high court, in a case known as Massachusetts v. EPA, courts have uniformly rejected legal challenges to the hazard finding, including a 2023 decision by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The hazard finding is widely regarded as the legal foundation underpinning a series of regulations designed to protect against increasingly severe threats from climate change. This includes deadly floods, extreme heat waves, catastrophic fires and other natural disasters in the United States and around the world.
Gina McCarthy, a former EPA administrator who served as a White House climate adviser in the Biden administration, called the Trump administration’s actions reckless. “This EPA would rather spend its time in court working for the fossil fuel industry than protecting us from pollution and the growing impacts of climate change,” she said.
The EPA has a clear scientific and legal obligation to regulate greenhouse gases, McCarthy said, adding that the health and environmental dangers of climate change “have become impossible to ignore.”
Dr. Lisa Patel, a pediatrician and executive director of the Medical Society’s Climate and Health Consortium, said Trump’s action “prioritizes the profits of big oil and gas companies and polluters over clean air and water” and children’s health.
“As a result of this repeal, I will see more sick children entering the Emergency Department having asthma attacks and more premature babies,” she said in a statement. “My colleagues will see more heart attacks and cancer in their patients.”
David Doniger, a climate expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Trump and Zeldin are trying to use the repeal of the finding as a “kill” that would allow the administration to make nearly all climate regulations invalid. The repeal could repeal current limits on greenhouse gas pollution from cars, factories, power plants and other energy sources and propose future rules for other global sources and could propose rules futures for global administration.
The EPA’s action follows an executive order from Trump that directed the agency to submit a report on the “legality and continued applicability” of the hazard finding. Conservatives and some Republicans in Congress have long sought to remove what they see as overly restrictive and economically damaging rules to limit the greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
The withdrawal of the endangerment finding “is the most important step taken by the Trump administration so far to return to energy and economic health,” said Myron Ebell, a conservative activist who has questioned the science behind climate change.
Target tailpipe emission limits
Zeldin and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy moved to drastically reduce limits on tailpipe emissions from cars and trucks. The rules imposed under Democratic President Joe Biden were intended to encourage US automakers to build and sell more electric vehicles. The transportation sector is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States
The Trump administration announced a proposal in December to weaken vehicle fueling rules for the auto industry, reducing regulatory pressure on automakers to control pollution from gasoline-powered cars and trucks. The EPA said its two-year delay to a Biden-era rule on greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks will give the agency time to develop a plan that better reflects the reality of slower EV sales, while promoting consumer choice and lowering prices.
The mileage plan should significantly reduce the requirements that set rules on how much new vehicles need to travel on a gallon of gasoline. Trump said the rule change would lower the price of new cars and increase Americans’ access to the full range of gasoline vehicles they need and can afford.
Environmental groups said the plan would keep polluting, gas-guzzling cars and trucks on US roads for years to come, threatening the health of millions of Americans, particularly children and the elderly.
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